In the adjustment of differences to which conflicting interests or a spirit of rivalry may give birth, governments, like individuals, are prone to satisfy themselves with conventions limited to matters immediately in dispute. They are like medical doctors, who treat symptoms as the malady to be cured, and, satisfied with alleviating present pain, leave its causes to war against mortal life, until disease becomes chronic and incurable.
Whether the labors of the Joint High Commission, now sitting in Washington, will be of this description, remains to be seen; but such, it appears to us, has been the character of treaties or conventions affecting commercial relations with our Canadian and provincial neighbors. They seem not to have been founded upon any intelligent consideration of the wants of contracting parties, but, presupposing that there must be conflicting interests, are devised to prevent rival industries from merging in unfriendliness and strife. We ask, then, whether these rival interests have legitimate existence. The answer to this question will be derived from an examination of the statistics of the two countries—their agricultural and other products—their climatic and social conditions, and the commercial relations actually subsisting between them, as well as those which both sustain to other countries and peoples.
The productions of a country are properly classified according to the sources whence they are derived.
We have, then, five distinct classes of products, namely: The natural productions of the sea, the earth, the forest, and the results of industry applied to agriculture and manufactures.
Let us now turn to the map of British America. Beginning at the east, the waters of Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence are rich in fisheries. They yield salmon, mackerel, codfish, haddock, ling, herring, and oysters, in great abundance. Newfoundland has not enough of agriculture to save its own population from absolute suffering when there is a failure in the catch of fish along its shores. It possesses rich though undeveloped deposits of copper, iron, and other ores. Prince Edward Island, in the centre of the mackerel fisheries, is, perhaps, more favored by nature than the other maritime provinces. Every acre of its surface may be reckoned as arable land. Its agriculture, always limited to the growth of hay, oats, potatoes, and turnips, is only partially developed, though even now yielding a considerable surplus for export. Its forests are exhausted of timber. And though, from habit, its people still continue to build wooden ships to send "home" for sale, they are obliged to import the material for their construction. The southern part of Nova Scotia contains a considerable portion of good farm lands; yielding the invariable crops of hay, oats, potatoes, and turnips. In some districts, apples and pears, of excellent quality, are grown in abundance. The eastern portion, especially the island of Cape Breton, is rich in coal, lime, freestone, and marble; all so placed as to be easily accessible to commerce. Evennow, despite protective duties on colonial products, the streets of some of our Atlantic cities are lighted with gas from Nova Scotia coal.
Gold has been found in sufficient quantity to afford opportunity for speculation, but not for profit. The yield for 1867 was 27,583 oz. = $413,745; for 1868, 20,541 oz. = $308,115. The same amount of capital applied to the growing of potatoes would doubtless afford a much larger return. Coal is the most important mineral product; and its chief market is found in the United States. The net amount mined in one year was 418,313 tons; sold for home consumption and to neighboring colonies, 176,392 tons; sent to the United States, 241,921 tons.
New Brunswick offers the same agricultural products as the neighboring provinces of Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. A great part of its territory, like the northern part of Maine, is cold, rocky, and inarable. But its forests yield large quantities of pine lumber, oak, beech, maple, and other valuable woods, and bark for tanning leather. This source of wealth is, however, rapidly failing. The forests begin to give evidence of exhaustion. St. John already asks what shall be her resource when the lumber is gone. Formerly, ship-building was a large interest in these lower provinces. But from the growing scarcity of ship timber, as well as from the more general use of iron vessels, it has been declining from year to year.
We see, then, what these provinces can now contribute to commerce; and we also see their prime deficiency. They cannot supply their people with bread. That comes from Canada and the United States. But Canada does not want their mackerel or other fish, their oats, potatoes, turnips, or hay. She wants money; and for want of a nearer market, the surplus oats must be sent upon a very doubtful venture across the ocean, the mackerel to the United States, and the dried fish to the West Indies and Brazil, to get money to pay for Canadian bread. But time is money. It is more than money—it is life. And when we take into account the loss of time in going to and fro across the ocean, and the great expenditure of unproductive labor that is required by this selling to Peter on one side of the world to pay Paul on the other, we cannot help believing that the poor provincial pays a high price for bread to eat and clothes to wear, as well as for the various products of other lands which, from being only conveniences, have become the necessaries of life.
We come now to the Province of Quebec—prior to the Dominion, called Canada East. Nearly all her territory lies north of the forty-sixth parallel of latitude. Need we say that agriculture, save for the few and slender productions of cold climates, is here impossible? For nearly seven months of the year the greater part of her rivers and harbors are closed to commerce by bars of impenetrable ice. The soil, and every industry relating to it, is under the dominion of frost.
The forests of timber may be accessible despite the snows of winter, and in the early spring her people may hunt seals along the coasts of Labrador; but during the long period of actual winter, her agriculturists, nearly her whole industrial population, must be employed upon indoor labor, or be left to hibernate in positive idleness. It is simply impossible that agriculture can ever be a successful industry in so rigorous a climate as that of Quebec.
Going westward through whatwas once called Canada West, now the Province of Ontario, we find a peninsula bounded by the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie, on the south and east; and by Lakes St. Clair and Huron, with their connecting straits, on the west. This peninsula, south of 45° N., comprises the wheat-growing lands of Canada east of Lake Winnipeg. Its area is something less than that of the State of New York. It produces good crops of wheat and other cereals, and nearly all vegetables and fruits grown in our northern and northwestern states. Farther west, we have the valleys of the Saskatchewan and its tributaries, capable of producing cereals, grasses, potatoes, and other vegetables. But our information, derived from missionaries and others long resident in that region, induces the belief that it is mere folly to regard a country in whose streams the fish lie torpid, and where the snow-fall is not enough to protect the land from killing frosts, in winter, as suited to the growth of cereals for export, or as capable of giving bread to any considerable population.
Much has been said and written concerning the territory lying on the Pacific coast. We believe it is well ascertained that the climate of British Columbia west of the mountains—we might well add the southeast coast of Alaska—is as mild as that of the state of New York. Unfortunately, it is very much more moist; so much more that it never can become a good agricultural country. The reason is so obvious that one is hardly disposed to question the assertion. The vast accumulations of ice and snow in and immediately north of Behring Strait, and on the high mountain range lying on the east side of this territory, must produce intense cold when the wind blows from the north and east. When the warm air comes from the southwest, the whole atmosphere must resemble a vapor-bath. Seeds may readily germinate, but can they produce ripe crops?
We have recently discussed this subject with a friend who has had intimate personal acquaintance with this coast for more than ten years, and we but reiterate his assertion in saying that, north of Oregon, agriculture is not a safe reliance for the support of a colony. We do not doubt that hay, oats, and potatoes will grow there. It is well known that they may grow where the sub-soil is everlasting ice. But we know that agriculture cannot be profitable either there or where the heats of summer last just long enough to melt the snows on adjacent mountains and convert the soil to mud. There must always be an excess of moisture to contend with in maturing crops. Our information as to the fact is positive. But suppose that, in process of time, by the clearing of forest lands, and other causes incident to the peopling and cultivation of the soil, these difficulties were overcome. Does any one believe that the products of the land could be carried by rail and inland waters through a distance of three thousand miles, and two or three thousand more by sea, and, after successive reshipments, at last pay the producer—save in cumulation of expenses added to the original cost of goods received in return? If, then, this far western country should ever have an excess of food or other commodities, they must find a readier market than either the far-off country of eastern Canada or more distant lands can afford. Its trade must be with the neighboring states of Washington, Oregon, and California. Will the people, on either side, long consent to pay tribute to government officials for the privilegeof exchanging the fruits of their toil?
Were they really of different races—distinct in language, manners, and customs beyond the degree that always makes the dwellers in one village imagine its "excellent society" a little superior to that of the neighboring hamlet—we might say, yes! But knowing, as we do, that they are by race, by conditions of soil and climate, and by reason of mutual interests, but one people, we do not believe it.
Let us now glance at the map of the United States. Leaving out Maine, northern New Hampshire, and Vermont, in the northeast; the narrow belt north of the 48th parallel, between Lake Superior and the Pacific Ocean, in the northwest; Florida, Louisiana, and Southern Texas in the south; the whole vast area between the 32d and 46th parallels of latitude, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean—in extent equivalent to three-fourths of all Europe—is suited to the production of wheat, rye, barley, Indian corn, oats, hay, potatoes, and every fruit found in temperate climates. There are no frosts to render agriculture a mere speculative enterprise; no bonds of ice to close the ports to commerce. Seed-time and harvest may be counted upon as certainly as the succession of seasons. Can there be a doubt that here the material interest forming the basis of all others is agriculture? We have no exact data for a comparison of the several products of the United States and British America; but for our immediate purpose it is quite unnecessary to present tables of statistics. We refer only to chief products. First—of those common to both countries, the productions of the United States are to the productions of Canada and the Lower Provinces as 13 to 1. The whole agricultural products of the United States, excluding those of orchards, vineyards, and gardens—which would present a still wider difference—are to those of Canada as 15 to 1. The annual yield of Indian corn in the United States is worth upwards of $800,000,000, or about five times the entire value of the agricultural product of British America. If we include in the comparison the values of animals and animal products, orchards, vineyards, and gardens, the proportion is something nearer 30 to 1, while the breadth of improved land is not as 10 to 1. And this while the breadth of our improved land is not more than one-thirteenth of our territory—though double the whole area of Great Britain and Ireland—and while any great expansion of agriculture in Canada is forbidden by the conditions of soil and climate. Are not these considerations sufficient to show the absurdity of persistence in the development ofrivalryin agricultural and commercial interests? Do we not see that in the United States agriculture is legitimately the greatest industrial interest, and that in Canada it is not? And we may well ask why the industrial population of Canada should not be employed in utilizing its timber and other products of the forest and the mine, or, where material is more readily found in the neighboring country, using the forces so abundantly provided by their inland waters and mines of coal, as well as by the muscle half-wasted for want of use, in supplying fabrics which they now import, and pay for by the scanty labors of just half the time that God has given them? These considerations are in some degree applicable to New England. The difference is, that New England knows it, and acts upon the knowledge.
Manufacturing is the appropriate industry of cold climates. When this is acknowledged, hibernation ceases. The people are no longer forced to eke out a meagre existence in winter upon the slender profits of toil spent in contention with chilling winds and frosts. True, Canada—a small part of it—produces bread for export. We know it: and we also know that every loaf costs twice as much, in human toil, as the better loaf yielded by the more generous soils and genial suns of Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, New York, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, and California. Canada produces good beef, mutton, pork, and, of course, the raw materials for manufactures incident to these products. But the herdsmen on the plains of Illinois, Iowa, Florida, and Texas would grow rich in selling beeves, swine, and sheep for the cost of their keeping through a Canadian winter!
On the other hand, we see, in some parts of our own country, whole communities of people engaged in mechanical industries, while the earth calls for tillage. Even in our more populous territories, enough of what should be fruitful lands to yield subsistence to a larger population than Canada will ever contain, lies fallow and neglected. But our commercial relations are adverse to the proper adjustment of industrial pursuits.
The Canadians dare not rely upon their neighbors for bread to eat, any more than those neighbors would venture to build their workshops and factories in Canada. The more venturesome try to obviate the difficulty, to some extent, by illicit trade; but all the obstacles to legitimate commerce—to the conveniences of living—remain; and they must remain as long as the American and Canadian producers have to pay tribute to Cæsar on exchanging the fruits of their labors. Reciprocity treaties may modify, but they cannot remove, this great obstacle to prosperous trade.
Treaties regulating trade cannot so change the industries of the two countries as to confine large agricultural enterprises to the soil and climate that would insure success, nor send the artisan, now living on rich uncultivated lands, to till the earth. What means the extraordinary emigration from Canada to the States? And how can we account for the sudden expansion of manufacturing industries in Montreal and other Canadian towns? It means that, while governments are discussing treaties for reciprocal trade, their people are practising reciprocal emigration—but with a difference. The Canadian becomes an American citizen—the American very rarely a British subject. We recollect two incidents in our own experience apropos to the matter under consideration.
Some two years ago we passed a summer in the "Lower Provinces." In the parlor of our hotel, we fell into conversation with an intelligent man of business who proved to be a commercial traveller from Canada. His specialty was boots and shoes. On mentioning that Lynn, in Massachusetts, was the great shoe factory of "the States," his reply was, "Yes! the head of our firm is from Lynn." Lynn had gone to Montreal to employ Canadian hands in turning Canadian leather into boots and shoes to supply colonial markets. "The head of our firm," like other heads of firms, had solved the problem of appropriate industry as far as he was concerned. He had learned where material, and hands to work it, were cheapest, and he was utilizing them. He had emigrated to employ the cheap labor that could not emigrate. At another time, we met a well-dressed mechanic who was not athome.His home was in "the States." He was only visiting his birthplace and kindred. In reply to the remark that the high wages which had enticed him to the States were only high in sound, since greenbacks were at a great discount, and food, clothing, and rent at inflated prices, his reply evinced a perfect understanding of the whole question, as it affected him and the class to which he belonged.
"True," said he, "I am paid in greenbacks; but I have a better house, better food, and better clothes than I ever had before. And at the end of the year, my surplus greenbacks are worth more,in gold, than I could get for a year's labor in this colony."
Here are two parties whose interests are reciprocal, whose social conditions are essentially the same, who live in juxtaposition to each other, but with broad ocean between them and other countries and peoples, frittering away material interests, wasting revenues that of right should be employed for their advancement in social life, to gratify a spirit of antagonism where even rivalry should be deemed insane. But is there no remedy for these disorders in our political economy? We think there is a very obvious one; and if we may not say, "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder," because the parties are not agreed, we can and do say, the sooner they are agreed, the better for both. We would say to Canada, do not waste your time and strength in trying to effect impossibilities. Let us see your many rivers alive with the artisans who can send to the market something else than ship-timber and deals. Let us see the smoke of the forge and the foundry rise in proximity to your mines of coal. We want all that you can make, and have no fear that you will in any degree impair the prosperity of our own industrial people. And we will pay you in bread, better and cheaper than you can get from your colder and less fruitful lands. And when your coarser materials are wrought into shape for export, we have skilled labor, nearer than Britain, to receive your surplus products and fashion them into the thousand fabrics which only skilled labor can supply.
We have no desire to see your wheat-fields fail or to decry their products in the market. We only say that they are too limited for dangerous competition with ours. And we further say, that if you will but develop other and more legitimate industries, so that your wheat-growing districts cannot feed your people, we will be sure to have bread enough and to spare. And you may be also sure that all your efforts will not so overstock the markets we can offer as to make trade languish, when the thousands now peopling this continent shall become millions, though the Old World should want nothing that you can give. And, then, you have but a doubtful road to the markets of the Old World. For half the year your highway to the ocean and to other lands must be across our territory. Intercolonial railways through unsettled and unproductive countries will not answer the demands of commerce. They will not pay; and, if they would, the interests served ought not to be so burdened where access may be had to readier and cheaper lines of communication.
Does all this imply annexation? Call it what you will. As one of your Canadian statesmen said to the people of a lesser province, "If you do not want us to annex you, we are willing that you should annex us." If you are more conservative than we are, a little conservatism will dous no harm; and the interests you would conserve would be quite as safe under the eagle's beak as under the lion's paw. If one be a bird, the other is surely a beast of prey; and we believe that harmless folk have less to apprehend from one alone than from the jealous rivalries of both.
Of one thing we feel assured: the time is not far distant when the people of this northern half of America will have to adopt a policy so distinct from that of the older nations of Europe that self-preservation will demand a union of power where there is now an evident identity of interests.
It were well that this union should be preceded by such guarantees of existing rights and privileges as might, without specific and just conventions, be open to subsequent question and dispute. And it were also well for governments to direct the march which necessity compels their people to make, rather than incur the risk of finding themselves at variance with those for whose greater good civil government is designed. We do not purpose to discuss the origin or foundation of civil government. It is enough for us to know that man requires and God wills it; and that, in the absence of other and higher sanctions, the best evidence of his will is found in the intelligent, honest consent of the governed. Does any one doubt what the more intelligent and honest people of Canada and the United States require? We do not ask what may be therôleof the political adventurer, the office-seeker, the government speculator or tuft-hunter. We always know that the end of all their loyalty or patriotism is self. But we ask what is needed for the greater good of the people. Not alone the people of to-day or to-morrow, but of the future as well. How the people of to-day esteem the policy of their lawgivers, may be known by their conduct under it. And the army of government revenue officers and detectives on either side along the frontiers of Canada and "the States" offers sufficient evidence of the esteem in which the laws of trade are held. We know not which is the more corrupt—the law-breakers or the agents of the law; but we do know, from the notoriety of the fact, that the commercial relations now existing between the Canadas and the States are, in effect, so demoralizing, to commercial people and commercial interests, that the laws which propose to govern them were better abrogated than left to offer a premium to chicanery and fraud.
We are neither alarmists nor political propagandists. We have no greedy desire for our neighbor's goods, no fanatical wish to impose our political dogmas or theories upon the people of other states. We but behold and see what is before and around us—and, seeing it, we only give utterance to belief that has grown and strengthened, until scarcely a doubt remains, when we say that we believe the ultimate union of the United States and British America to be inevitable. The time may be more or less distant, the occasion and the means may be as yet undreamed of; but the event seems as certain as the coming of the morrow's sun while the shades of evening gather over and around us. If, unfortunately, war should take the place of peaceful union, the calamity would hardly be less to us than to Canada.
By peaceful union, existing rights of the weaker party are made secure. By war, they are jeopardized and may be lost. But to us, as well as to them, war would be a calamity of such fearful magnitude, that we areconstrained to look with hope to the time when the conflicting interests of the Old World shall have no power to disturb the peaceful relations that should always exist between ourselves and our neighbors.
The whole scope of the subject properly comprised under the title "Higher Education" obviously includes all that belongs to every kind of institute of learning above common schools. We have selected this title in order to leave freedom to ourselves to discourse upon any part of the subject we might think proper, although in our first article we limited our remarks to a class of schools intended for that which is more strictly to be designated as intermediate education. We have a few additional remarks to offer upon the same part of our subject, after which we will proceed to throw out a few suggestions upon some of its remaining and still more important portions. We are not attempting to treat these topics fully and minutely, and our observations will be, therefore, brief and desultory.
In regard to the course of studies to be pursued in intermediate schools, it is a question of great practical moment how to arrange the several branches to be taught to the pupils in such a way as to prepare them most efficiently for the future occupations of their lives. The course common to all ought to be made up of those studies which are alike necessary or important to all. In addition to these common studies, certain special branches should be taught, or the distinct branches of the common course more extensively carried out, for distinct classes of pupils, varying these optional studies according to the different occupations for which they are preparing. For instance, a moderate quantity of mathematics and a rudimental, general course of instruction in physical sciences are sufficient for all, except those who will need greater knowledge and practice in them for use in their profession. It is useless to attempt, in these days, education on the encyclopædic principle. The common and solid basis of all education once laid, the more specific it becomes, the better; and for want of good sense and skill in selecting studies, apportioning the relative time and labor given to them, and directing them to a definite end, very great waste and loss are incurred in education.
One other most important point, which we merely notice, is the propriety of providing the most thorough instruction in the modern languages, especially the French, which can more easily be done, as we suppose, in the schools of which we are speaking, that no time whatever, or at most but a moderate amount, is given to the ancient languages. Without going further into details, it is obvious that schools of the intermediate class have an unlimitedsphere in which they can give any kind and degree of instruction belonging to the most extensive and liberal education, deducting the classics, and stopping short of the university, properly so called. Nor is there any reason why, if we had universities in the highest sense of the term, the pupils of these schools should not afterward enjoy all the privileges they offer which do not require a knowledge of the ancient languages. We will not say anything on the vexed classical question. Did it seem to be practicable, we should strongly favor making the study of Latin a part of the education of all who go beyond the common rudiments, as well girls as boys, to such an extent that they could understand the divine offices of the church. For all other uses or advantages, we are inclined to think that many pupils who occupy a great deal of time in gaining a very imperfect smattering of Latin and Greek, might better spare it for other studies.[15]
However the question may be eventually settled in regard to the classics as a part of general education, it is certain that they must retain their place in the education of the clergy, and of at least a select portion of those who are destined for other learned pursuits and professions. We shall speak more fully about this part of the subject a little further on. Before leaving the topic of English education, however, we have one or two supplementary observations to make, suggested by the remarks of other writers which we have come across since we began writing the present article.
F. Dalgairns, in an article which he has published in theContemporary Review, has expressed himself in a manner quite similar to our own respecting the necessity of a return to the scholastic philosophy. His remarks have given us great pleasure, and they furnish one more proof of the tendency toward unity in philosophical doctrine among Catholics which is daily spreading and gaining strength. One observation of his on this head is specially worthy of attention. He says that it is necessary, if we desire to teach the scholastic philosophy to those who have received or are receiving a modern or English education, to translate and explain its terms in the best and most intelligible English. A mere literal translation from Latin text-books will not answer the purpose. This is very true, and we cannot refrain from expressing the wish that the health and occupations of F. Dalgairns may permit him to write an entire series of philosophical essays, like the one he has just published on theSoul, to which we have just referred. Indeed, we know of no one better fitted by intellectual aptitude for metaphysical reasoning and mastery of the requisite art as a writer, to prepare a manual of philosophy for English students.
TheDublin Reviewhas repeated and sanctioned the observations of F. Dalgairns, and has added something to them equally worthy to be noticed—to wit, that our Catholic text-books of logic need to be improved by incorporating into them the results of the more careful and thorough analysis of the laws of logic which has been made by several English writers. It is very true that, although the English metaphysic is a sorry affair, there have been several very acute logicians among modern English thinkers; as, for instance, Mr. Mill, Mr. De Morgan,and Sir William Hamilton. We suppose that theDublin Reviewintends to designate the doctrine of what is technically called the "quantification of the predicate" made known by the two authors last mentioned, simultaneously and independently of each other, as a real discovery in logical science, and an addition to Aristotle's laws. We hope the matter will be further discussed, and that not only English and American writers interested in the subject of philosophical teaching will give it their attention, but Continental scholars also. For our own part, ourrôleat present is the modest one of giving hints and provoking discussion, and we therefore abstain from going any deeper than a mere scratch of the rich soil we hope to see well dug and planted before long.
From another and very different quarter, we have found within a day or two a corroboration of several opinions we expressed in our first article. Prof. Seeley, of the University of Cambridge, England, in a little volume of essays, noticed by us in another place, advocates the teaching of logic in English schools, dwells on the importance of teaching history after a better method, and sketches out a plan of improving the instruction given in medium schools and universities, which is well worthy of being read and thought over by those who have the direction of education.
But we will turn now to another and still higher department of education, which embraces the courses of study proper to the university and the schools which are preparatory to it. Beginning with that branch of study which must undoubtedly still continue to form an essential and principal branch of the strictly collegiate education, the classics, we do not hesitate to say that this branch, instead of being less, ought to be more thoroughly and completely cultivated. In so far as Latin is concerned, it is evident that those who aim at anything more than the degree of knowledge requisite for understanding better the modern languages, and the terms which are in common use derived from Latin, or, perhaps, for a more intelligent appreciation of church offices, ought to master the language fully, together with its classical literature. The reasons which prove this statement apply with tenfold force to ecclesiastics, for whom Latin ought to be a second mother-tongue. It is not necessary to give these reasons, for they are well known and fully appreciated by all who are concerned with the collegiate or ecclesiastical education of Catholic youth.
The question of Greek is a distinct one. For those who study the classics for the sake of their intrinsic value as works of art, Greek has the precedence of Latin in importance. It is evident, therefore, that a most thorough and extensive course of Greek is necessary for students of this class. Whether such a course ought to be made a part of the obligatory collegiate curriculum of studies, or merely provided for a select class who may choose to enter upon it, we leave to the discretion and judgment of the learned. Undoubtedly, we ought to have a certain number of accomplished Grecians among our men of letters. It is necessary in the interests of ecclesiastical learning that we should have thorough Greek scholars among our clergy. For all useful purposes, however, the value of the amount of Greek actually learned by the majority is exceedingly small, and not to be compared with the practical utility of a knowledge of any one of several modern languages, for example, the German.A clergyman, for instance, who does not aspire to become a learned philologist, but only to make himself acquainted with the labors of the best commentators on the Scripture, will not find it very necessary to be able to read the Septuagint or the Greek New Testament. As for Hebrew, whatever can be learned by a short and superficial course will be almost useless. If he desires to read Aristotle, Plato, or the Greek fathers, for the sake of their sense and ideas, he can do so in the Latin translations without any fear of being led into any erroneous interpretation. The point we are driving at is, that the thorough study of Latin is the most essential thing to be secured in aclassicalcourse. Philosophy; a moderate course of mathematics; the English language and literature; the physical sciences, and the modern languages, especially the French, are the other essentials of a complete collegiate course. Whatever time remains will be most usefully employed in the study of history and of modern political and social questions, branches which are certainly essential to a complete liberal education, though for many, or perhaps most, students their thorough cultivation may have to be postponed until after their college course is finished. The improvement of the collegiate education in all these branches, requires, of course, a corresponding improvement in the preparatory schools, since the school and college depend on each other. It is our opinion, in which we are sure that the men most experienced in these matters concur, that those who begin their schooling at the earliest suitable age need to be well trained in an excellent preparatory school until the age of seventeen, before they are fit to profit fully by a high collegiate course. Those who begin later must enter college at a more advanced age, unless they can make up by diligence for lost time, or be content with a shorter course of study. The raising of the conditions for entering college, which can be done gradually, must improve the preparatory schools, and the improvement of these schools will in turn benefit the colleges, by furnishing them with subjects fitted for a higher course of studies.
In saying this, we beg to disavow any intention of undervaluing or finding fault with the colleges and schools at present existing, or the learned and laborious corps of teachers employed in them. They deserve the highest meed of praise and gratitude, and we may well congratulate ourselves on the truly vast work which has been accomplished, at great cost and by dint of great efforts, in the cause of Catholic education in this country. But our motto should ever be, like that of the past generations of laborers in this great cause, "Upward and onward!" We trust, therefore, that all we may say in favor of improvement will be taken as an encouragement and not as a fault-finding criticism—as a friendly suggestion, and not as a presumptuous attempt at dictation.
We have now reached the proper place for speaking of the great necessity of a Catholic University in the United States. A well-conducted college for undergraduates is not a university, though it is often dignified with that name; but is merely one of the principal constituent parts of a university. In regard to the proper constitution, nature, and conduct of a university, much has been written, of late, both in Europe and America. In Europe, those who write on the subject either consider the subject of improvement or reform in universities already existing, or the demands existing in variousquarters for the foundation of new ones. These last are chiefly among Catholics, who are extremely alive to this necessity in several countries, but especially in Germany and England. The foundation of a great Catholic University for Germany at the spot which is most appropriate for such a grand undertaking, on account of its hallowed and scholastic memories, Fulda, has been determined. We hope that the efforts to make the Catholic University of Dublin completely successful, and to found another in England, may speedily produce their desired result. In this country, the heads of the older Protestant colleges are considering what measures can be taken to raise these institutions to the level of the universities of Europe. Among the papers which we have read from different quarters on this subject, those of Professor Seeley, of Cambridge, and of one or two professors of Yale College, writing in theNew Englander, have especially attracted our attention; and we may have occasion to reproduce some of their remarks or suggestions in the present article. Among the Catholics of the United States, the Germans have manifested what looks like the most serious disposition which has yet shown itself for taking the actual initiative in the movement. We rejoice to see it, and hope they may go on. They are a most respectable body; their energy, wealth, and power of organized action are great. Germany is full of young ecclesiastics of the best education, who are sighing for employment, and competent to fill chairs in all the departments except that of English literature. We have but one precaution to suggest, in case this enterprise is undertaken, which is: that proper care be taken to secure the entire subordination of the corps of governors and teachers to the hierarchy and the Holy See, and to ascertain the strict orthodoxy of the persons called to fill the professorial chairs. We want no followers of Hermes, Döllinger, or any other leader of a German sect in philosophy or theology; and persons of that class whoserôleis played out at home, might be the very first to look out for a new field in which to practise their manœuvres, in a German University in the United States, if they saw a chance of securing in it the desirable position of professors—a position which has special attractions for the German mind.
TheAdvocateof Louisville has recently spoken out very strongly on the need of a Catholic University in this country; and the topic is frequently broached in conversation, as, indeed, it has been for the last fifteen years. Let the Germans go forward and take the lead if they are able and willing; but this will not lessen the necessity of the same action on the part of the other Catholics of the country, who, we may hope, will be stimulated by the example of a body of men so much smaller in number than themselves. When the time comes for action in this matter, the direction of it will be in higher hands than ours; but, meanwhile, we will indulge ourselves in the at least harmless amusement of sketching an ideal plan of the university as it lies in our own imagination, and of the possible method of making it a reality.
A university is a corporation of learned and studious men who are devoted to the acquisition and communication of science and art in all their higher branches. It may be more or less complete and extensive. In its greatest extension it ought to comprise one or more colleges for undergraduates, schools of all thespecial professional studies, and a school of the higher and more profound studies in every department of literature and science. It must have a permanent body of learned men residing within its precincts, whose lives are entirely devoted to study and instruction. It must have a vast library; museums of science and antiquities; a gallery of painting, sculpture, and all kinds of artistic works; a complete scientific apparatus, a botanical garden, magnificent buildings, beautiful chapels, and a grand collegiate church, with its chapter of clergymen and perfectly trained choir. It should have, also, a great publishing-house, and issue regularly its periodical reviews and magazines, as well as books, of the first class of excellence in the several distinct departments of science and letters. It must be richly endowed, and well governed, under the supreme control and direction of the hierarchy and the Holy See. A plan combining the chief distinctive features of the Roman University, Oxford, Louvain, and the best universities of France and Germany, with some improvements, would represent the full and complete idea we have in our mind.
When we come to the practical question. What could be done now, at once, toward the beginning of such a colossal undertaking? it is by no means so easy to solve it as it is to sketch the plan of our ideal university. We do not fancy, of course, that such a grand institution as this we have described, or even one similar to the best existing European universities, can be created in a hurry by any speedy or summary process. But if it is commenced now, can it not be brought to completion by the beginning of the twentieth century? It seems to us that in the year 1900 or 1925 we shall need not one only, but three grand Catholic universities in the United States. That we can and ought to begin the work of founding one without delay, we have no doubt. The difficulty is, however, in pointing out a sensible and feasible method of doing well what many or most of us are ready to acknowledge ought to be done quickly. Let us suppose that the requisite authority and the necessary funds are confided to the hands of the proper commission, who are to lay the first stones in the foundation of a university. How should they proceed, and what should they first undertake? As these high powers exist only potentially and in our own imagination, we can be certain that they will not take offence if we presume to offer them our opinion and advice.
What is the first and most obvious want which we seek to satisfy by founding a university? It is the want of a collegiate system of education and discipline superior to the one already existing in our colleges, and equal to any existing elsewhere. The first thing to be done, then, is to select some already existing college, or to establish a new one, as the nucleus of the future university. We will suppose that some one of our best colleges can be found which has the requisite advantages of location, etc., making it an eligible place for a great university. Let measures be taken to place the grade of education and instruction in this college at the highest mark. The first of these measures must be to give it a corps of professors and tutors fully equal to their task, and to make the position of these professors a dignified, honorable, and permanent one. Another measure of immediate necessity would be the total separation of the college from the grammar-school, and the establishment of a system ofdiscipline suitable not for boys but for young men. The mere announcement by sufficiently high authority that such a system would be inaugurated in a college, would draw at once within its walls students enough eager to begin a thorough course of study, to secure the success of the experiment. At first, the course of study already in vogue might be carried on, merely adding to it such branches as would not presuppose a previous preparation not actually possessed by the students. For admission to the class of the next year to come, the conditions might be raised one grade higher, and thus by successive changes, previously made known, the maximum standard might be reached without inconvenience or injustice to any; and the grammar-schools would be enabled and obliged to prepare their pupils expressly for the examination they would have to pass for admittance into the college. The college thus properly planted and cultivated would grow of itself in due time to maturity and perfection. Nothing more is wanted than a good system, fit men to administer it, plenty of money, and a body of youth fit and desirous to be instructed and educated in the best manner. The library, the scientific cabinets, the philosophical apparatus, the buildings, grounds, and other exterior means and appliances, should be provided for as speedily and amply as circumstances would permit.
The second great want, in our opinion, is the provision for ecclesiastical students of the advantages for education which can only be completely furnished by a university, and which cannot, therefore, be fully enjoyed at separate ecclesiastical seminaries. The Little Seminary is only a superior kind of grammar-school, even though it gives instruction in the ancient languages and some other branches to the same extent with a college. The Grand Seminary is, strictly speaking, a college for instruction in theology, although it includes a year or two of that study of philosophy which is only introductory to the theological course. A thorough university course, in which all the instruction preparatory to theology should be finished, would give a more complete and thorough education to young ecclesiastics, fit them much better for their professional studies, and prepare them much more efficaciously for the high position which belongs, by all divine and human right, to the priesthood. This is the way in which the clergy, both secular and regular, were trained during the Middle Ages. The system of separate training came in afterward, and has been kept up by a sort of necessity, chiefly because the universities have become so secularized as to be dangerous places. We have touched, in these last words, the tender spot, which we well know must be handled delicately. The great argument for secluding young ecclesiastics in seminaries entirely separate from secular colleges is, that their morals, their piety, their vocation, are otherwise endangered. We reply to this by a suggestion intended to do away with the objection to a university life, and at the same time to show how its advantages may be secured. Let both systems be combined. Let there be a college exclusively intended for young ecclesiastics, in which they shall be kept under the discipline of the Little Seminary, at the university. The Little Seminary will then take its place as a separate grammar-school for boys who are intended for the ecclesiastical state. From this school they can pass, not before their seventeenth year, to the college at the university,and they will have seven years still remaining in which to finish their education, before they arrive at the canonical age for ordination to the priesthood. It seems to us that the separate college is a sufficient security for the morals, piety, and vocation of any young man above seventeen years of age who is fit to be a priest in this country outside of the walls of a monastery. Moreover, we are speaking about a model Catholic university, which, we should hope, would not be so extremely dangerous a place for young men. We have never heard that Louvain is considered in that light by the clergy of Belgium, and the glimpse we had of a large body of the Louvain students at Malines during the session of the Congress of 1867, gave us the most favorable impression of their virtuous character.
The university should also be the seat of the principal Grand Seminary, and of a school of Higher Theology. The reasons for locating the place of education for ecclesiastics at a university apply to all the grades of their distinct schools above that of the grammar-school with nearly equal force, and they are very weighty in their nature. They concern in part the professors and in part the students. So far as the former are concerned, it is evident that they would derive the greatest advantage from the facilities for study and intercourse with learned men afforded by the university, and would exercise the most salutary influence over the professors in the departments of philosophy and secular science. One great end of the university is to collect together a great body of learned men devoted to the pursuit of universal science; and it is obvious that this cannot be successfully accomplished unless the ecclesiastical colleges are included within the corporation.
In regard to the students, it seems plain enough that all that part of their course which precedes theology can be much more thoroughly carried on at a university of the highest class than at a Little Seminary, especially if these seminaries are numerous and therefore necessarily limited in numbers and all kinds of means for improvement. A concentration of the endowments, the instructors, and the pupils in one grand institution, makes it possible to give a much better and higher kind of education, and saves a great deal of labor besides. It is especially, however, in relation to the lectures on physical science, and the cultivation of other general branches distinct from the routine of class recitations, that the university has the advantage over the seminary. The students of theology, moreover, can receive great benefit from lectures of this kind, and from the libraries, museums, cabinets, etc., which a great university will possess, as well as from the greater ability and learning which men chosen to fill the chairs of sacred science in such an institution are likely to have, in comparison with those who can be made available for giving instruction in many of the smaller seminaries. Over and above all these advantages for actually gaining a greater amount of knowledge, there is the immense advantage to be gained of bringing up together and binding into one intellectual brotherhood our most highly educated Catholic youth. There is something in the atmosphere and the surroundings of a great university which quickens and enlarges the intellectual life; brightens the faculties; trains the mind for its future career, and fits it to act in society and upon men. The alma mater is a centre of influences and associations lastingthrough life. The learned men residing there, and their pupils in all professions, are bound together by sacred ties, which are not only a cause of pleasure to them in future years, but of great power for good in the community. Such a university as we have described would in twenty-five years produce a body of alumni who would intellectually exert a great influence over the Catholic community throughout the United States, and make themselves respected by all classes of educated men. The clergy ought to retain the first place and a commanding influence among this body of educated Catholics. For this purpose, it seems to us that they ought to be educated with them, and look to the same university as their alma mater.
We see no reason, moreover, why the religious orders and congregations should not share and co-operate in the labors and advantages of this great enterprise. The smaller congregations find the suitable education of their postulants a difficult task. One or more colleges at a university, where these students could reside by themselves, under their own rule and superior, but receiving their instruction from the university professors, would solve this difficulty. The older and more numerous religious societies have greater facilities for educating their students, and are governed by their own old and peculiar traditions. We will not presume so far as to give them any suggestions from our modern brain in regard to matters in which they have the experience of from one to six centuries. It strikes us, however, as a very pleasing and quite mediæval idea, that our proposed grand university, which we may as well make as splendid as possible while it remains purely ideal, should have its Dominican, Jesuit, Sulpician, and Lazarist colleges. There is no reason why such colleges should not make constituent parts of the university, each one having its own laws and regulating its own internal affairs according to its own standards.
We will say nothing about the law, medical, scientific, and artistic schools which a university ought to have to make it complete.
We have only attempted to show how a university might be started on its career. Once really alive and in motion, the rest would be more easily provided for. Undoubtedly, a vast sum of money would be requisite for such an undertaking. Our wealthy Catholics would have to exercise a princely liberality, and the whole mass of the people would be obliged to contribute generously for many years in succession. We must admire the remarkable instances of princely liberality in the cause of general education recently given by Mr. Peabody, Mr. Cornell, and a considerable number of other wealthy gentlemen in the United States, whose benefactions to colleges and schools have been frequent and munificent. Let us have one-twentieth part of the money expended on education by other religious or learned societies, and we will show again what we did in former ages, when we founded Oxford, Cambridge, St. Gall, Bec, Paris, Salamanca, Fulda, Louvain, Cologne, Pavia, Padua, Bologna, and the other famous schools of the middle ages. What more important or more glorious work can be proposed to the Catholics of the United States than this? We know what our Catholic youth are, for we have spent much time in giving them both scholastic and religious instruction. What can be more ingenuous, bright, and promising than their character—more capable of being mouldedand formed to everything that is virtuous and noble? They contain the material which only needs the proper formation to produce a new and better age, which we fervently hope is already beginning to dawn. As the Alcuins, Lanfrancs, and other illustrious fathers of education in former times were among the principal agents in producing epochs of new life, so those who take up their work now in our own country, and throughout Christendom, will be among the principal benefactors of the church and the human race, and deserve for themselves a most honorable crown.
Our topic in the present article has led us to present almost exclusively and in strong light the advantages to be derived from a university and from university education, in relation both to the ecclesiastical state and secular professions. To prevent mistake, we add in conclusion, that we do not desire or anticipate the suppression or merging into one institution of all our colleges and seminaries. It is scarcely possible that all the students of this vast country should be educated in one place. The necessity for other colleges and seminaries will of itself create or continue them. The university will give them an example and model to follow, will furnish those not already amply provided for from the bosom of old and learned religious orders with professors, will give those who desire it a chance to complete their studies after leaving college by residing for a time within its walls, and will reign as a queen among lesser institutions, giving tone, character, and uniformity to the scientific and literary community of Catholic scholars throughout the country. There are doubtless certain respects in which the universities of Europe must always have an advantage over any institution we can hope to found in this new country. Some, or even many, will always have a longing for a residence abroad in these ancient seats of learning, which they may and ought to gratify, when it lies in their power to do so. Above all other places, Rome must ever draw to her those who desire to drink faith, piety, and knowledge from their fountain-head. And, if a better age is really coming, not only will the Pope necessarily be secured in a more tranquil and firm possession of his temporal kingdom in all the extent which he justly claims, that he may govern the church with all the plenitude of his supremacy, but also that the wealth and prosperity of the Roman Church may give to her institutions of learning an amplitude and splendor which they have never yet attained. Planets are nevertheless necessary as well as a sun in a system, and so also are satellites. However ample and extensive the provisions made at Rome may be for educating a select portion of the clergy of all countries, they can never make it unnecessary to provide also in every country for the best and highest education of its own clergy. So far as we can see, every reason and consideration cries out imperatively for the speedy foundation of a Catholic University in the United States.